Max Richmond
Age: 27 Sex: Male Height: 6'0" About Max was a member of the Melbourne Lifeguard Unit from 2015 to January 2018. Before that he served in the US Coast Guard and helped with an oil spill near to Venice, LA. Encounter with Janus In January, Max was a the first responder near the beach in Melbourne Florida to discover a colony of logger turtles that had mysteriously died. Shortly afterward, members of the Florida Wildlife Research Institute arrived and quarantined the area, also taking Max to an undisclosed location for a health screening. Once there, the head physician, Meredith Parker; informed Max that he had been declared dead and that a mysterious organism was spreading throughout his body. Given his experience with the life guard, Meredith inquired his expertise in studying the organism. Max helped Logan Washington to dissect the organism, discovering that the substance appeared to be eating away the organs of the deceased animal and then replacing them. Before their research could continue however, the two were tasked with assisting at an oil rig off the coast of Florida. There they discovered that the organism had spread across the facility and killed thirty five workers. Logan took one of the corpses back to HQ for further examination. Once back, Homeland Security classified the incident as a natural disaster to cover up the discovery of the organism. Logan continued his examination of the corpse, discovering that the organism was also reanimating portions of the body. Soon after, the corpse began to attack members of the facility and Homeland locked down the facility. The security detail attempted to kill the beast, only to be enmeshed with the corpse into a multi legged amalgamation of flesh and slime. Logan tried to determine the patterns of the monster, only to ultimately be killed in the process. Max soon determined that the creature was searching for a water source and tried to use this information to trap the monster. Because Max was infected, he was able to communicate with the organism and kill it. Unfortunately, the organism consumed him and Meredith and nearly cost their lives. They were absorbed by the organism, an attempt for it to join conscious thought with theirs; and Max experienced visions of where he believed that the organism might have originated from, a trench near the Bermuda Triangle. Meredith managed to save Max's life, using cancer cells to temporarily ward off the beast and concluding that the same cancer she once had was the reason the monster died and failed to absorb them. Meredith tried to convince Max to stay with the project to destroy the source of the organism, but confused and distraught over his suddenly shortened life span, Richmond instead opted out and tried to resume a normal life. A few months later he recognized that the organism had managed to overcome the cancer and was mimicking the process, killing him even faster. He checked himself into the Melbourne Rehabiliation Center, where he tried to use as many pain meds as possible to ignore the pain until eventually his body died.